Calendar of Events
Upcoming events and things to do in Asheville, NC. Below is a list of events for festivals, concerts, art exhibitions, group meetups and more.
Interested in adding an event to our calendar? Please click the green “Post Your Event” button below.
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We’re proud to call Western North Carolina home. Our dedicated staff work and live in the area, just like you. Whether you’re here for the breath-taking mountain views or the cooler weather, we’re glad you’re here to help us save the lives of your neighbors.
Our centers are the perfect places to give back and kick back. Open every day, yes weekends too, makes it easy to fit donating into your schedule.
You could probably use a little peace, and every Blood Connection center offers that. Clean, spacious, and comfortable, a center getaway may be exactly what you need…it’s exactly what 3 blood recipients need too.
Every donation has the power to save up to 3 lives. Every 2 seconds, someone in the U.S. is in need of a life-saving blood transfusion. You’re 1 person who can make a difference!

Wake, Mel Chin’s giant animatronic sculpture, installed in New York City’s Times Square last summer, will be on view in Asheville through March 15, 2021, at 44 Collier Avenue. Chin, a WNC based conceptual artist, was named a MacArthur Fellow in September 2019.
Wake was commissioned as part of Mel Chin: All Over the Place, a multi-site survey of his works from across many decades that took place in several New York City locations. A collaborative group, led by UNC Asheville’s STEAM Studio and The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, formed to plan and raise funds for the sculpture to be seen locally.
Wake – 60 feet long, 34 feet wide and 24 feet high, conceived and designed by the artist – was engineered, sculpted and fabricated by an interdisciplinary team of UNC Asheville students, faculty, staff and community artists led by Chin. The sculpture is interactive and features decks and places to sit and contemplate.
Wake evokes the hull of a shipwreck crossed with the skeletal remains of a marine mammal. The structure is linked with a carved, 21-foot-tall animatronic sculpture, accurately derived from a figurehead of the opera star Jenny Lind that was once mounted on the 19th century clipper ship, USS Nightingale. Jenny Lind moves subtly as she breathes and scans the sky.
Visitors can experience Wake daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at 44 Collier Avenue. For more details and a schedule of programming, visit ashevillearts.com.

Beginning October 7, the three-hour documentary-styled art installation Question Bridge: Black Males will be on view at the Asheville Art Museum. This innovative transmedia project facilitates a dialogue between Black men from diverse and contending backgrounds, and creates a platform for them to represent and redefine Black male identity in America. The work will be on view during regular public hours from October 7, 2020 through March 15, 2021.
Question Bridge: Black Males is a project that explores critically challenging issues within the African American male community by instigating a transmedia conversation among Black men across geographic, economic, generational, educational, and social strata of American society. Question Bridge provides a safe setting for necessary, honest expression and healing dialogue on themes that divide, unite, and puzzle Black males today in the United States.

MANNA FoodBank and their partner agencies have served an average of 101,000 people each month since March. This is a 70% increase over pre-pandemic levels. The need is deep and persistent across Western North Carolina. MANNA is dedicated to our neighbors in need and is working to end hunger across the mountains of North Carolina. When you round up to support MANNA, they are able to do amazing things. No amount is too small because $1 provides 3.5 meals!

Asheville Gallery of Art’s December show, “#ArtSquared,” is amulti-artist show featuring a variety of original square paintings by gallery members. The show runs December 3-29 during gallery hours, 12-5 p.m. Thursday thru Sunday. You can also make arrangements for a private tour by emailing a request to [email protected].

December 21 & 22, NOON – 4pm

*Order by Sunday, December 20 to ensure Christmas delivery!
PICKUP HOURS EXTENDED
Open: Friday (12/18) – Wednesday (12/23) 1-4 PM
Closed: Thursday (12/24) – Wednesday (12/30)
Open: Thursday (12/31)
Closed: Friday (1/1)
Open: Saturday (1/2) – Sunday (1/3) 1-4 PM
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Tribute Companies is requesting Artist Qualifications for a permanent art mural(s) for their mixed-use development, The Ironwood, located on Asheland/Coxe Avenue in Downtown Asheville.
This artwork should do the following:
● Create excitement and interest for the area. ● Honor the diversity of Asheville’s Southside community. ● Celebrate the vital role of African American history and culture in Asheville. ● Connect visually to the site through interpretation of historical and cultural aspects. ● Be durable, low maintenance, and appropriate to the location. Integral to creating this artwork(s), is the artists’ willingness to learn about the community and have a dialogue with interested community members to help inspire and guide content creation. A range of materials/applications will be considered, including painted murals and digitally printed murals. If digital, the work must be vector based, printable, and scalable to the site specifications. |
Since 2015, GreenWorks has been working to perfect the 24/7 litter capturing device.
Enter… the Trash Trout Jr!
The litter traps on our Trash Trout Jrs work all day, every day to prevent trash from reaching our rivers. The majority of litter is single-use plastic, and most of it is not recyclable. These devices are less expensive to build and easier to maintain that our larger Trash Trouts, and they are perfect for small streams and tributaries — meaning we’re able to capture and remove litter earlier in its “life in the water.” This all means less photodegradation, less exposure to aquatic life, and less negative impact on water quality.
In 2020, we added 3 new Trash Trout Jr locations: Smith Mill Creek, Haw Creek, and Hayes Run Creek (Madison County). We also built 2 others, to be installed in 2021. These devices are checked regularly, especially after large rain events, and are cleaned out by staff, interns, and volunteers.
Wanna be a hero? We’re kicking off our Adopt a Trash Trout program! If you’d like to get more involved in protecting our waterways, and if you love the Trash Trouts (because who doesn’t?!) – find more information and sign up at https://bit.ly/2W2y0iR

Grants from The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina have helped fund our Trash Trout program since 2017, and local sponsors provide support for annual maintenance and cleanouts. Let’s give them all a HUGE thank you:
Smith Mill Creek: Sponsored by New Belgium Brewing and Southern Appalachian Anglers
Town Branch Creek: Sponsored by Sitework Studios and Wedge Brewery
Hayes Run Creek: Sponsored by Ivy River Partners and Sustainable Madison
Hominy Creek: Sponsored by Zen Tubing and Pisgah Plants
Mud Creek: Sponsored by Hendersonville, NC City Government and Pisgah Plants

Spring LEAF Retreat May 13-16 at Lake Eden
LEAF Downtown/ Reimagine August 27-28
Fall LEAF Festival October 14-17 at Lake Eden (Size TBD*)
These events will be limited in size but will retain all the LEAF Love. LEAF Members will have priority and at times exclusive access to these events. Please note that Spring LEAF Retreat will be members-only and tickets will be made available on January 4th, 2021. Members have kept LEAF Mission alive and at work in this wild year of 2020! Your membership empowered LEAF to maintain our support of LEAF International Culture Keepers in the 10 countries and local LEAF Schools & Streets Artists. When you support culture, artists and teachers you are investing in the community and young people’s future. Interested in becoming a member? Join membership today!
All $250+ memberships will receive the 2021 LEAF Calendar hot off the press and its going to be a great year!

The Museum was closed for nearly six full months as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, causing severe losses in revenue. Though we are now open, uncertainty still looms, and it will take a dedicated effort to recover to a position of strength and stability. Thanks to a generous grant from a longtime foundation supporter, the Museum has established the Asheville Art Museum COVID-19 Relief Fund and matching challenge to encourage additional operational support during this difficult year. We invite you to participate in the challenge and help secure the Museum’s future as we work to serve our community through engagement with the arts.
Through December 31, 2020, all Annual Fund donations and upgraded memberships will be matched dollar-for-dollar up to $75,000. Give any amount to the Annual Fund, and boost your impact at this critical time with the one-to-one match. You may also join the Masterpiece Society or renew at another upgraded membership level. Any gift in addition to your current renewal will be matched by this fund and will count toward your membership
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We will be collecting wet or dry cat or dog food, small animal/rabbit food, cockatiel/parakeet bird food, cleaning supplies, pet supplies (toys, blankets, and more), along with monetary donations at AHNA.
We will have a donation bin on our patio at AHNA for donated items. Items can be dropped off during regular business hours (M-F 7:30am-6:00pm, and Sat 8am-5pm).
Starting in December, we will be offering online donation collections through Amazon wishlist and direct donations to the organizations. Supplies can be ordered online and delivered to AHNA. We will distribute the donations after the first of the year to the Asheville Humane Society and Meals on Wheels.
Asheville Humane Society: https://www.ashevillehumane.org/donation-drive

Grove Arcade is thrilled to announce the return of its annual Winter Wonderland holiday celebration.
The Arcade has transformed into a wreath-bedecked showcase for Asheville’s finest local craftspeople and retailers. Smells of pine and holly will greet visitors as they tour—at a proper social distance!—Asheville’s stunning art deco gem to discover one-of-a-kind, handcrafted local gifts, enjoy holiday-themed beverages and dining specials, and winter-y feels within the warm Grove Arcade halls. Specially curated Christmas standards and the most extravagant holiday decorations in town will transport visitors to a truly unforgettable winter paradise.
We will be hosting a local MANNA Food Bank Drive! Drop-off barrels will be placed around several areas of the Arcade to be collected and distributed by MANNA to help during these uncertain times.
For the enjoyment and safety of everyone, Grove Arcade will be taking appropriate COVID-19 precautions during Winter Wonderland. All visitors and employees will be required to follow the CDC’s health recommendations, including social distancing and mask wearing.
Enjoy a safe and jolly visit to Grove Arcade’s Winter Wonderland! And from all of us at Grove Arcade, Happy Holidays!
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Wake, Mel Chin’s giant animatronic sculpture, installed in New York City’s Times Square last summer, will be on view in Asheville through March 15, 2021, at 44 Collier Avenue. Chin, a WNC based conceptual artist, was named a MacArthur Fellow in September 2019.
Wake was commissioned as part of Mel Chin: All Over the Place, a multi-site survey of his works from across many decades that took place in several New York City locations. A collaborative group, led by UNC Asheville’s STEAM Studio and The Community Foundation of Western North Carolina, formed to plan and raise funds for the sculpture to be seen locally.
Wake – 60 feet long, 34 feet wide and 24 feet high, conceived and designed by the artist – was engineered, sculpted and fabricated by an interdisciplinary team of UNC Asheville students, faculty, staff and community artists led by Chin. The sculpture is interactive and features decks and places to sit and contemplate.
Wake evokes the hull of a shipwreck crossed with the skeletal remains of a marine mammal. The structure is linked with a carved, 21-foot-tall animatronic sculpture, accurately derived from a figurehead of the opera star Jenny Lind that was once mounted on the 19th century clipper ship, USS Nightingale. Jenny Lind moves subtly as she breathes and scans the sky.
Visitors can experience Wake daily from 9 a.m. to 9 p.m. at 44 Collier Avenue. For more details and a schedule of programming, visit ashevillearts.com.

Andy Warhol: Silver Clouds

Andy Warhol’s Silver Clouds create an immersive experience born out of the iconic Pop artist’s interest in innovation and experimentation. Warhol collaborated with Bell Labs engineer Billy Klüver to transform the then-new material Scotchpak into an enlivened and interactive work of art. First shown in April 1966 at the Leo Castelli Gallery in New York City, these air- and helium-filled balloons float like pillows through a space which, combined with their metallic surface, garnered the name Silver Clouds. The clouds notably became part of the design and choreography of Merce Cunningham’s RainForest, which premiered in 1968.
To ensure the safety of Museum visitors and staff, Silver Clouds will be presented as a touch-free experience. Visitors are encouraged to view the work from a distance as the balloons, moved by gentle air currents, drift about the space while imagining the presence of Cunningham’s dancers. A video recording of RainForest in its entirety may be viewed in Reverberations: Exploring Movement in the Collection.
Beginning October 7, the three-hour documentary-styled art installation Question Bridge: Black Males will be on view at the Asheville Art Museum. This innovative transmedia project facilitates a dialogue between Black men from diverse and contending backgrounds, and creates a platform for them to represent and redefine Black male identity in America. The work will be on view during regular public hours from October 7, 2020 through March 15, 2021.
Question Bridge: Black Males is a project that explores critically challenging issues within the African American male community by instigating a transmedia conversation among Black men across geographic, economic, generational, educational, and social strata of American society. Question Bridge provides a safe setting for necessary, honest expression and healing dialogue on themes that divide, unite, and puzzle Black males today in the United States.
Dancing Atoms
Barbara Morgan Photographs

Barbara Morgan, a founding member of the Aperture Foundation, earned a reputation as a Modernist. Much of her work involves dance, photomontage, and a desire to capture motion. She often would design her images so that the figure was shown against neutral or blank backgrounds that heightened the energy of the motion. As proven in Morgan’s photographs, the exploration of movement is a theme that countless photographers have been drawn to in the past. Capturing the beauty and effort of kinetic energy on film takes not only a keen photographic eye, but, more importantly, an understanding of the science that creates such action. Morgan was one such photographer. Her legacy of observing life in relation to “dancing atoms” is forever preserved on film and on paper, providing a glimpse into her world of photography, painting, light, and modern dance.
This exhibition is organized by the Syracuse University Art Galleries.
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The Asheville Art Museum presents Fantastical Forms: Ceramics as Sculpture on view at the Museum November 4, 2020 through April 5, 2021. The 25 works in this exhibition—curated by associate curator Whitney Richardson—highlight the Museum’s Collection of sculptural ceramics from the last two decades of the 20th century to the present. Each work illustrates the artist’s ability to push beyond the utilitarian and transition ceramics into the world of sculpture.
North and South Carolina artists featured include Elma McBride Johnson, Neil Noland, Norm Schulman, Virginia Scotchie, Cynthia Bringle, Jane Palmer, Michael Sherrill, and Akira Satake. Works by American artists Don Reitz, Robert Chapman Turner, Karen Karnes, Toshiko Takaezu, Bill Griffith, and Xavier Toubes are also featured in the exhibition.

Reverberations
Exploring Movement in the Collection
Movement in static mediums such as painting, drawing, and photography is difficult to express, yet many artists feel called to explore it. Movement serves as an impetus for creation—to either capture it or create it in entirely different mediums. The works here, selected from the Asheville Art Museum’s Collection, highlight additional approaches to rendering a lasting imprint of the ephemeral. Artists such as Walter Iooss and Blythe Bohnen are concerned with the motion of the human form, evoking a sense of elongated or contracted muscles, of limbs moving through space. Others, like Robyn Horn and Bernar Venet, approach the challenge through abstraction, foregoing representation yet communicating an atmosphere of dynamic change. Marianne Preger-Simon’s drawings of her fellow dancers at Black Mountain College in the summer of 1953 are not only portraits but also a dance of pencil on paper, created in the spirit of artist Josef Albers’s line studies as she simultaneously worked with choreographer Merce Cunningham. Each of these artists ultimately reflects on the time-based ephemeral nature of movement.

MANNA FoodBank and their partner agencies have served an average of 101,000 people each month since March. This is a 70% increase over pre-pandemic levels. The need is deep and persistent across Western North Carolina. MANNA is dedicated to our neighbors in need and is working to end hunger across the mountains of North Carolina. When you round up to support MANNA, they are able to do amazing things. No amount is too small because $1 provides 3.5 meals!

Asheville Gallery of Art’s December show, “#ArtSquared,” is amulti-artist show featuring a variety of original square paintings by gallery members. The show runs December 3-29 during gallery hours, 12-5 p.m. Thursday thru Sunday. You can also make arrangements for a private tour by emailing a request to [email protected].

*Order by Sunday, December 20 to ensure Christmas delivery!
PICKUP HOURS EXTENDED
Open: Friday (12/18) – Wednesday (12/23) 1-4 PM
Closed: Thursday (12/24) – Wednesday (12/30)
Open: Thursday (12/31)
Closed: Friday (1/1)
Open: Saturday (1/2) – Sunday (1/3) 1-4 PM
Our beginner film class is held 6:30 – 9:30 pm, weekly for 8 weeks. There will be a minimum of two shooting days, as well as 1-2 actor audition days (dates/times to be determined in class, dependent on actor, student, and location availability) that will be held outside of regular class. Students as a group will also be responsible for providing craft services for the actors on shooting days.
Law of Attraction (LOA) is a powerful guideline that can be utilized within our lives, and impacts ourselves as well as the collective consciousness. Let’s discuss practical, everyday ways we use and apply these tools in 2020! This session’s discussion will be, “Visualization exercises in LOA.” No advance prep, reading or knowledge required. Come with an open mind and heart, free of judgement, and let’s learn together! This is an inclusive, informal, interactive discussion for people will all levels of LOA understanding.
Some other topics we will cover in future discussions include:
– How to utilize LOA to manifest best case scenarios
– Gratitude practices as a tool in manifestation
– Honoring your own feelings, emotions and well being (and others) as a form of self care while manifesting
– Staying grounded, avoiding toxic positivity and spiritual bypassing when manifesting
– Visualization exercises in LOA
– Manifesting on specific themes (love, money, good health, etc.)
Discussions will be held by Kathryn Brahaney, myself. I’ve utilized Law of Attraction in having a significantly better recovery than anticipated from two major car accidents, in receiving a job offer that allowed me to relocate to Asheville, NC (where I live now) and in finding my favorite apartment to date in a city I wasn’t sure would be in my budget. I started these discussions to share my experience using Law of Attraction and to provide opportunities to learn more that are accessible and affordable. Looking forward to sharing more with you all and chatting about how we can use LOA in navigating the rest of 2020 and beyond!
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Tribute Companies is requesting Artist Qualifications for a permanent art mural(s) for their mixed-use development, The Ironwood, located on Asheland/Coxe Avenue in Downtown Asheville.
This artwork should do the following:
● Create excitement and interest for the area. ● Honor the diversity of Asheville’s Southside community. ● Celebrate the vital role of African American history and culture in Asheville. ● Connect visually to the site through interpretation of historical and cultural aspects. ● Be durable, low maintenance, and appropriate to the location. Integral to creating this artwork(s), is the artists’ willingness to learn about the community and have a dialogue with interested community members to help inspire and guide content creation. A range of materials/applications will be considered, including painted murals and digitally printed murals. If digital, the work must be vector based, printable, and scalable to the site specifications. |




